Senators Debate Vote on FISA 702 Action
Senators debated whether to invoke cloture on legislation reauthorizing Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority Tuesday, despite pushback from senators seeking stronger privacy protections and urging the Senate to have a fuller debate on the bill’s privacy implications. "What unites our bipartisan coalition is we strongly oppose this end run around our Constitution," Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told reporters. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Steve Daines, R-Mont.; and Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined Wyden in pushing for additional privacy protections to be added to the bill, in a news briefing earlier Tuesday.
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Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said the 702 program is the "single most reviewed program in Congress" and rebutted complaints that S-139 violates the constitution. The bill "will strengthen and protect" Americans, balancing the need for additional privacy protections, said committee vice chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. “This bill is product of extensive bipartisan, bicameral negotiations ... and represents significant compromise" while instituting "key reforms," Warner said.
The bill needs to end warrantless back-door searches of people’s information in the Section 702 database, the five senators said. The other top priority is clarifying through legislation that the government can no longer do “about” collection of information gathered on people who aren't actual targets of FISA investigation -- a practice NSA suspended last year but has not publicly committed to ending. The House bill “actually goes backward” in privacy protections, Wyden said: For that reason, the legislation “ought to be open to real Senate debate.”
“The U.S. should not be in the business of warrantless surveillance of American citizens,” Warren said. "I join my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, because we need reforms to our intelligence programs -- better protections for privacy and more accountability and transparency," she said. "Opposing warrantless surveillance is not a partisan issue -- that's why I planned to be here today with people on both sides of the aisle," she added. "Congress needs to step up and put guardrails in place to ensure that Section 702 is used to keep us safe from foreign threats."
"This week, the Senate will attempt to pass a bill that misses the mark on protecting fundamental constitutional rights," said Daines. "Congress intended this program to target foreign suspects living on foreign land," but the program expanded to collect information on innocent Americans. he said. "We must do our due diligence in debating this program." Leahy said it's critical to put in checks to "stop our government from being able to spy on us. "We insist we at least debate this bill," Paul said.
Requiring a probable cause warrant to access the contents of Americans’ phone calls and emails would be required in an amendment to 702 legislation proposed Tuesday by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Leahy; Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Kamala Harris D-Calif. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., blocked consideration of amendments when the bill was filed last week, a Judiciary Committee aide told us.
Privacy groups were hopeful the Senate could have a debate on the legislation as it move toward final passage. “It will be disappointing if there are no Senate votes allowed on 702,” said Center for Democracy and Technology Deputy Director-Freedom, Security and Technology Project Michelle Richardson. “The all-or-nothing approach to this complex surveillance program has been bad for privacy and bad for oversight.”
“The bill codifies and potentially expands existing surveillance capabilities,” said American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani. “This is the opposite of what they should be doing.” ACLU and other civil liberties groups pressured lawmakers to include language banning about collections. “The Senate has not had one minute of public debate” before taking the bill to the floor, “which is pretty shocking,” Guliani said.
“Congress is about to waste a rare chance to ensure that the United States’ electronic surveillance programs appropriately balance national security interests with users’ privacy,” wrote Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black in The Hill. In addition to ending about collection and back-door searches, Black urged Congress to “increase the detail with which private companies can disclose the number and type of government requests they receive, permit additional declassification of FISA court orders, and require more reporting on how U.S. persons’ communications are queried and used by the government.”
“Just want folks to know, if @realDonaldTrump gets expanded spying powers, [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions gets to decide when to use this collection against you,” Wyden tweeted Tuesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tweeted that he planned to vote against cloture because the bill “as written gives the government far too much power to spy on innocent U.S. citizens.”